I used to hate Mondays, waking up and getting ready for work was a drag. And I mean a litteral drag. I needed to drag myself out of bed and into traffic. Now I’m waking up extremely early, earlier than I was when I had a job. But now I’m exited to wake up and find out what is going on in the market. Even though I really don’t know what I’m looking for or what I’m actually doing. But I wake up and try to figure it out.
The very first thing I started to do is to look at the securities that are moving premarket due to released news. Usually news is coming out at 3AM or 5AM. So I’m awake and reading what is moving and trying to find out what moves stocks. What kind of new will move a stock a few dollars before the market opens?
Still learning this.
I’ve traded about 3 times in the pre-market and all 3 times I’ve had losses. Eventhough the stock continued to move up when the market opened or still the next day. Hard lessons that I must pay for. This I accept as my tuition in learning how the stock market work and how I can start trading into gains.
So, because I don’t trade in the pre-market. Atleast, not yet. I’m still waiting for the opening bell and trading with everyone.
This morning I noticed that there were not many alerts for the Upward alert window that I follow. So I started to see $OSTK, just curious to see how it was holding up after a week long of gains. Saw it right under $24 and wanted to get into in, with a small position. But I wasn’t very positive in this stock, mostly because of the speed it was moving. And the large large spread.
Instead I waited patiently and got an alert after 9 in the bottom bounce alert window. Which is a nice strategy because it is slow and sometimes moves over 50 cents in a few hours. And as a beginner, this is very appealing to me and my bottom line.
The stock was $NBL and it came into the alert window at $24.
I’ve been burned before in this strategy so I only bought 300 shares. If it gained 0.10 cents, that would put me in the green for $20 dollars and lately I’ve had a red streak that even a little gain would be blessing. I joined the masses at $24.13 about 10 minutes after the alert, as I’ve learned that the alert doesn’t mean to get in, it only means look at this one for a possible entry. The alert came in at $24 and the low was $23.98, so I told myself that if it stayed above $24 and moved above the red candle prior to the alert, I could see a possible entry at $24.10 or so. as you can clearly see that the next candle after the alert was a green hammer and when I saw that, I was more inclined to enter this trade.
My Entry was right after the green hammer at $24.13, and I think it was a great entry as it continued upward and into giving me a green day. Which I was really excited to have, but the position was still open, and I knew that at any moment it would come down and stop me out at my stop of $24. My target was only 0.30 cents as that would not only provide about $100 but the second red candle from the alert was about 30 cents and I felt it was a good conservative target.
When It moved to my target I hesitated to sell as I wanted to get as much as I could from this trade, but I also wanted to be cautions and take some profit before it reversed and continued down after a little move up. (Which has happened to me before). The next target I calculated by looking at the red candles on the left was $24.83. So in a split second I made the decision to stay in the trade and wait it out for it to move to my new target.
Unfortunately as you can see from the chart, the long red candle after the three green candles made me panic and I sold the position at $24.33.
🙁
I took profit for the day and left much more on the table. But I ended the day in the green and for the time being, that makes me very proud and lifts my spirit to continue to venture.
Tomorrow is another day filled with possibilities.